Tag: Cooking

Ever have those weeks where you are just bored of everything you usually eat? That has definitely be me lately! I’ve been all about the new recipes and this week’s meal prep is no exception! I can’t wait to share all of these foods with you!

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to share recipes with you for some of them just yet….I am still testing them out, so it will be a bit!

Next up, a pan roasted veggies and chicken sausage dish and a couple styles of burrito bowls. These turned out well, but still need some tweaking before I’m ready to share the recipe! Here are a couple similar style dishes that I’ve made before and loved!

For our snacks and sides this week, I tried some new things as well! Along with my Healthier Cinnamon Bread and our protein balls (recipe will finally be posted later this week!!), I made some peanut butter and banana roll-ups and a turkey pinwheel. I should have the recipes for those for you next week!

That’s it for this week! You can try out the two main dishes that I had recipes for and download your grocery list for them here:

First Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

I know this week’s meal prep was pretty short (and a day late….) but I hope you will bear with me! Hopefully I will have plenty of new recipes ready to share with you soon!

Oh. My. Gosh. Y’all….seriously, this meal prep is delicious! I have been excited to share this meal prep with you ALL WEEK. 3 new recipes, including one impulse decided-to-make-during-prep type of recipe haha. Usually I’m not one to impulse make dishes that aren’t planned out, but this one I just had to give a try! And when you already have all the ingredients needed and ready…well, it’s an easy and delicious decision to make!

So, to kick things off, our snacks and smaller meal! The snacks were pretty basic – my celery and sliced turkey and Peanut Butter Chocolate Protein Balls! The smaller meal was the impulse make, inspired by a recipe I saw on Instagram! These are basically a healthier and tastier version of cup noodles, and far more satisfying too!

Mine included:

a mixture of curry base, chili garlic sauce and sesame oil on the bottom

frozen corn

shredded napa cabbage

chopped broccoli

cooked thin spaghetti

Overall, pretty basic, right!? But oh so good. You just add boiling water and let it “steep” for a while, then enjoy! And there are so many options. I think this will become a regular addition to our meal prep.

I didn’t even make much for changes this week! One main change to tell you about – For the Kale Soup, I used pre-cooked quinoa that I had in the freezer. I took it out to thaw the day before and added it in when I took the chicken out to shred. I wasn’t sure how well it would work, but it worked beautifully! I’m sure it would be great the way the recipe has it, but we had some already prepped that I wanted to use up first.

Want to give this one a try? Get your grocery list here!

First Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

So that’s it for this week’s meal prep! Have you tried any new recipes lately that you’ve loved? I would love to hear about them!

After my trip to Las Vegas, I was definitely ready for a food-reset! Am I the only one who finds it crazy that it was hard to eat healthy during a fitness conference? So when I got back, I knew I wanted to make sure that my meal prep for the coming week were packed with veggies!

Sadly, I didn’t get to enjoy it quite as much as I would have liked, since I ended up spending most of the week fighting off a minor flu. But that is okay! I got to experiment with some new recipes and I was able to save most of the prep that didn’t get eaten. The other plus side: Even while I was sick and had just gotten back home a few days before, I didn’t have to worry at all about what Draz was going to take for lunch or anything like that! Meal prep really can save you so much stress.

Enjoy!

For snacks, I changed things up a bit. Before I left on my trip, I got some really delicious local ground mustard that I love to use as a dip. So I cut up some veggies to have as a snack to go with it! A couple of the days I ended up taking some pretzels to dip in it too. Have you ever used mustard like that? It’s delicious!

For me, I made some burrito bowls inspired by this recipe, some garlic-y zucchini noodles (still working on the recipe for this one) and the One-Pot Cabbage Veggie Saute I shared with you yesterday! Overall, everything turned out great! With me getting sick, I ended up putting a bunch of the cabbage dish in the freezer, so I guess we will get to see how well that recipe freezes!

Ok, so this prep is actually from a couple of weeks ago, before I left for BlogFest and IdeaWorld. Because I was getting ready to leave, I didn’t really get the chance to actually post it! But I really love how this one turned out, so here it is! (Want to read more about the conference? Check out my experienceand thoughts!)

I kept my snacks pretty simple this time around. The sliced chicken and cheese is my current favorite snack and definitely helps tide me over between breakfast and lunch! And the hard-boiled eggs are a great boost for me when I get home from work, before I head to the gym. What is your go-to pre-workout snack? I would love to give it a try!

For Draz’s main dishes, I made two of his favorites: Island-Style Pulled Pork and Freezer-Ready Turkey and Bean Burritos! I made extra burritos, since I was hoping some would be leftover for him to enjoy while I was gone. I will be posting my recipe for these soon, but until then, hereis the recipe that I started out using!

I like a thicker chowder, so I also simmered it a bit longer. And when it was done simmering, I ladled out a few cups worth and blended it, then added it back in. I think it turned out great and will definitely be making this delicious recipe again!

Want to make my dishes for yourself? Here is the grocery list for my main dishes!

First Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

Do you prefer chowder or soup? If you like chowder, how do you thicken yours up? I would love to hear your thoughts, so please leave a comment below!

Hey everyone! Settling back into your routine after last week’s holiday festivities? Even with Draz and I not doing much here, I know things have calmed down a bit this week. I’m gearing up for a lot of things coming up here, so quick and healthy meal prep has been my main focus lately! This week’s meal prep were wonderful and only took a few hours to put together!

Enjoy!

Once again, I forgot to take pictures of our snacks. These honestly haven’t been changing much lately, though this week I really only put together a couple of snacks total. (I know, shocking!)

But our main dishes more than make up for that. Not only are they oh-so-pretty and colorful, but these dishes turned out delicious! For me, I made more Chicken Burrito Bowls and Kielbasa, Peppers, Onion and Potato Hash! This hash is seriously one of my favorite dishes! So filling, healthy and very savory. The one main change I made to the hash was using sweet potatoes instead of regular. Just plan for longer to saute the potatoes a bit longer than the recipe calls for. For the burrito bowls, I might use guacamole instead of chopped avocado. I think the using lime juice to keep it from browning didn’t work quite as well for me this time around. Still was tasty, but didn’t hold up as well as it did last week.

Want to give this one a try yourself? Get your downloadable grocery list here!

First Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

That’s it for this week! As I said earlier, I’ve been pretty focused on quick and simple recipes lately. Lots coming up, and some of it even has to do with the blog! I am headed to Las Vegas in a little over a week for BlogFest and couldn’t be more excited for it! I’m sure I will have a lot to share with you afterwards!

Any trips or vacations coming up for you? I would love to hear about it, so please leave a comment below!

Happy 4th of July weekend everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely weekend! I actually got to celebrate a little for this holiday. My parents came to camp nearby, so I got to spend some time out there with them! It was great to just relax by the fire and chat 🙂

I am super excited to share this week’s meal prep with you all! Not only is it absolutely delicious, but it was really nice to our budget too. Enjoy!

So, in all my crazy distracted-ness, I actually forgot to photograph the snacks from this week’s meal prep. I kept things pretty basic though. Cookie dough protein balls for Draz, chicken lunchmeat and cheese, celery sticks and peanut butter, and a few hard-boiled eggs. These higher protein and fat snacks have been working great for me! If you have any suggestions for high protein snacks you love, I would love to hear about them!

One change I made to the Cabbage Sauteed with Chicken – I doubled the amount of chicken in the recipe. This recipe is originally intended to be side dish. So to make it work better for a main meal, I increased the amount of protein! I didn’t have to change anything else and it worked great with more chicken!

The Burrito Bowls were new and I absolutely loved them! I will admit, I was a little skeptical at first, since part of it calls for cutting up avocado and putting it in the bowls. But the lime did the trick and the avocado held up great throughout the week! For the shredded chicken, I used a variation of her Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken, but subbing out the tomato sauce for 2 cans of diced tomatoes (mostly because I didn’t have any tomato sauce haha). One thing to note for this recipe – it might make things easier to buy the avocados a few days ahead of time so they are ripe. I didn’t plan well for this, so I actually ended up assembling the burrito bowls a day later than the rest of the meal prep. Also, I left out the sour cream, since I’m not a big fan of it.

Here are the macros for this week’s main dishes:

Want to give this menu a try? Get your grocery list here!

First Name

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

That’s it for me this week! What did you do over your holiday weekend? Did you still do meal prep? I would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment below!

Hey everyone! It’s been a while! And that fact is where the announcement comes in – I might be missing posts a little more often right now. I do love sharing my life with you all! My meal preps, fitness tips and so much more.

But part of taking care of yourself is working to find balance. And lately, well, my life has been pretty out of balance. I’m hard at work on my jewelry business and trying to build more of a career in fitness. Along with that, I’m still working overnights at my “regular” job and trying to maintain some time with Draz as well. Unfortunately, this doesn’t leave me nearly as much time for the blog as I would like.

I am going to try to still put out 2 posts a week, but I’m going to ask that you bear with me while I try to figure out my new schedule and responsibilities! Hopefully at some point I will be able to leave my overnights job and have a little more time available.

Now on to the second part of this post – the downside of weekly meal prep!

You all know that I absolutely love my meal prep. It helps me set up for success each week, save money and have more time! I’m able to plan well to hit my macros, feel full every day and keep my stress level down while I deal with my busy life. But there are some downsides as well. One big one is when your meal prep doesn’t go the way you hoped it would!

That is just what happened this week. Sometimes I will have one recipe I’m not thrilled with. This week I had the bad luck of all 3 recipes not turning out well! Add on to this that I didn’t check the macros before planning and so my carbs were over every day. And I didn’t make enough food for the week. So all in all, not a great week for food at our house!

But this is one of the risks when doing meal prep. There might be the occasion when you don’t like anything you cooked. Now, of course, this can happen any given week that you cook, even if you aren’t prepping. But there is something discouraging about knowing that all of your food is ready for the week and you don’t like any of it!

This is one of the reasons I encourage people to only test 1-2 new recipes any given week. This is usually a rule I stick to myself as well, for just this reason. That way, if something doesn’t turn out well, you have other options that you do like! It won’t save you from eating the dish you don’t like, but at least it’s not for every meal haha.

So, no recipes to share with you this week, because I’m not going to subject you to that! Instead, a reminder to try to pace yourself with new recipes. And a peak into my kitchen, showing you that even someone who meal preps every week has weeks that go wrong! It’s all part of the learning process!

I know it’s been a couple of week’s since you have really heard from me. Things have been changing a lot here and it’s kinda thrown my schedule into chaos. And if you’ve been here with me for long, you know how much I thrive on routine! But things are finally settling down here and falling into a new routine, so hopefully I won’t have any more long absences anytime soon!

Even with the chaos of the past few weeks, meal prep has been one of the main things that has helped me to keep the changes from becoming too overwhelming. I don’t always do well with rapid change, but knowing that I had our food ready and easy for us to grab helped a lot! This week’s meal prep was no different, with it’s high protein snacks and filling main dishes. Enjoy!!

Along with all the changes that have been going on for me personally, I made some changes to my snacks as well! With a focus on them being filling and full of protein, I added in some rotisserie chicken lunchmeat with my grapes and cheese for my first snack of the day. For my second one, celery with peanut butter!

This is actually the second week that I have done these new snacks and I’m really liking them. Hard-boiled eggs, a couple types of protein balls finish out the snacks and I also made a big back of our breakfast burritos and some mason jar salads inspired by this recipe!

I have learned one thing though, when it came to my celery snack. All over Pinterest you can see portable snacks and one of those is celery in a small mason jar with peanut butter already at the bottom. The first week I made these I gave that a try….did NOT work well for me haha. It was very difficult to really dip the celery in the peanut butter and made for more frustration than the snack is worth.

This week, I put the celery in the mason jars again, but just for ease of storage. I put a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter in tiny containers. Then I grabbed one of those each day along with our other food. It worked so much better! So while this does create a little more dishes, it’s well worth it in my opinion.

Out of the 3, the Enchiladas take the most work, but the flavor makes them well worth it! If you like this one like we do, you can cut down on the time it takes in the future by making a larger batch of shredded chicken. You can then freezing it into the amounts you need for this recipe! I like seasoning mine with some cumin, paprika and chili powder and slow cooking a big batch to shred. Tastes delicious and really cuts down on the time and dishes for making it in the future.

Hey everyone! I hope you are having a lovely weekend! This has kinda been a weird and hectic week for me, so I’m glad that I kept meal prep pretty simple. With trying to get used to my new schedule and preparing for upcoming markets, I’ve been pretty busy here. This hearty and healthy meal prep definitely helped me keep on track while I was on the go!

That’s it for this week! Sorry for this one being so brief, but I’m honestly still pretty exhausted from the market yesterday. This week’s meal prep definitely helped me get through the craziness though. How has meal prep helped your life lately? I would love to hear about it, so please leave a comment below!

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a lovely week! I know I did, and that was in part to having this delicious meal prep to enjoy every day when I got home! As you might remember from last week’s post, things have been a bit stressful here. Having our meals taken care of is one less thing that I have to worry about. That I got to try 2 new recipes this week that both turned out AMAZING just makes things even better.

Enjoy!

Nothing really new about our snacks and my salads. I am really loving these new-ish snacks right now, though I might look at adding to them soon! For right now, I’m just sticking to these Quinoa Omelette Bites and No-Crust Pizza Bites. And these salads are quickly becoming my new favorite! I think I’ve almost gotten them just the way I like them, so keep tuned for an upcoming recipe post 🙂

The real excitement this week is the main dishes. Draz asked for more Skinny Chicken Enchiladas, so those got added to the list. But with all the change-ups happening, I thought I would have some fun and try a couple new recipes. Both of these are really quick and easy to make, which makes them even more perfect for meal prep!

First up, Slow Cooker Chicken Curry. This was so easy to toss into the slow cooker and go about the rest of my prep. I cooked it for about 6 hours and then just shredded the chicken instead of cutting it up. It worked perfectly! This curry even got Draz’s approval, which doesn’t happen often! He likes curry but is more particular about it than I am. This one is being added to our “make again” list!

The other new dish of the week was Healthy Baked Chicken Italian Sausage and Peppers. Now, while I enjoyed the curry a lot, this one was my favorite this week! SO tasty! I used 2 packages of Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage that had 4 links each, and roughly 4-5 bell peppers. This ended up being put on 2 sheet pans, which worked out perfect. I love how simple, yet flavorful this dish is and we will definitely be having this one again soon!

For both of the new dishes, Draz had his with brown rice and I had mine with riced cauliflower. I’m really loving that frozen riced cauliflower I mentioned in last week’s post. I can honestly say I will probably be having this one a few times a week for the foreseeable future!